


Oh The Humanity

by onepieceofharry



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:08:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25798699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onepieceofharry/pseuds/onepieceofharry
Summary: Copley loses trust in Merrick sooner and events unfold just a bit differently, with one half of the team racing to rescue Joe and Nicky meanwhile they prove themselves way more capable of dodging corporate goons when Booker isn't going behind their backs.A hashed out Booker confrontation interspersed with Joe and Nicky proving they're a power couple in more ways than one.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 13
Kudos: 177





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A wham bam thank you ma'am fic that's a canon divergence just because i wanted more tog content, but like, more of the same content.

Her shoulder stung with every fall of her right foot, the skin feeling tight and the bandage restrictive in a way she’d never considered. It was a new feeling, and considering the shear scope of her life new feelings in and of itself were something of a miracle. She didn’t know if her wound was a miracle, an end to the suffering that pierced her heart more resolutely than any stab wound, or if it were something else entirely. Thinking of her probable mortality didn’t bring with it the relief she expected. Instead, just trepidation. An anxious feeling in her chest she skirted away from as all that could come from it was distraction. She was here for a purpose. 

Copley wasn’t what she expected, immediately springing to his feet and throwing his hands in the air when he saw her, then staring right past her to Booker.

“Where are Joe and Nicky?”

“They’re at Merrick labs, but first I’m going to have to ask you to turn your weapon on your partner.”

Of all the enemies who’d tried to pit her against her team, no one had ever just outright asked. “Sure,” she said, only to raise her gun higher and catch Copley’s head in her sights.

He jumped. “He sold you out, Andromache. He’s been working with me and Merrick to take you in and study your physiology. I wanted to make a-a vaccine or cell treatment with what we learned but Merrick isn’t-”

Booker approached over her right shoulder, his footsteps soft but Andy had long since memorized what they sounded like. Awareness prickled, and her wound seemed to throb as he inched closer, but Copley’s words meant nothing to her compared to the hundreds of years she’d spent with Booker at her back. 

Sensing he wasn’t getting through to her Copley shifted his attention to Booker. “Merrick isn’t coming, he doesn’t know you’re here. If you want to take Andromache in you’ll have to do it yourself.”

Booker was next to her now, and she could see in her periphery how his eyes flicked to her then back to Copley. He swallowed and twitched minutely, but it was so unlike him Andy read it as a flinch.

No.

“This isn’t what we agreed.”

Her blood rushed quicker than it had in over half a millennium, thoughts whirring but refusing to land on the apparent obvious. She kept her gun trained on Copley because the alternative couldn’t be true. There were very few truths she lived with on a daily basis and one of them had just been ripped away with her mortality. She could count on her team. That truth was greater than even the supernatural order that shaped their lives.

Her breath stuttered slightly when he moved forward, staring down into the laptop Copley had opened and the CCTV footage flickering through the small screen. Joe and Nicky.

“This isn’t what I agreed to either,” Copley said, gesturing. “Is this what you imagined would happen to your friends? Because I don’t like it.”

Joe was out cold, while Nicky seemed to getting slowly stabbed with what she could only assume was a needle. His distress was evident, as was the array of what seemed to be _cut off pieces of flesh_ next to him. 

Booker made a sound, dropping his gun to peer closer at the small screen. “I see…”

In the next moment Booker was on the ground, Andy’s bullet lodging in his hip and his weapon wrenched away. His gun’s magazine clattered to the floor along with the bullet in the chamber with Andy’s instinctive disarming movement. Instinct was all she had now, as conflicting, horrific truths made themselves clearer in a way that shouldn’t make sense. 

“ _Why_ ,” was her gasping question, watching as Booker clenched his jaw against the pain. She hadn’t phrased it like a question, but still demanded answers. “Why, Booker?”

His gaze averted at her question, but flint burned in his eyes. Whatever reason he had for doing what he did, it was unshaken. 

“Um.”

Andy met Copley’s eyes again, a snarl twisting her features at the interruption. Copley wasn’t looking at her, but was staring at the CCTV footage with the disbelief and wonder that often overtook the mortals they worked with when they did something particularly insane. Which meant…

***

Nicky had lived through battle after battle and war after war. He knew the beats; knew the push and pull of action and inaction, knew to gauge his enemies stamina and weaponry and zeal. But most of all, he knew he could always count on the one unknown factor. The unpredictable. Boys hundreds of times his junior have been able to kill him because of coincidence. Wars fell to unlikely enemies because the weather decided to behave unpredictably. Battles subverted because the general of one side was a friend of a friend to the princess of the opposite. Nicky believed in destiny because of this, believed in the karma of the universe that demands a certain outcome despite the apparent strength of the opposition. Things simply happened that defied logic.

Which is why it only took him a moment to consider the warped metal of the bindings on his hospital bed and devise a plan to use it to his advantage. It was a lucky break, and so, _so_ unlikely to have happened in such a carefully controlled environment but ‘lo and behold it had. Destiny.

Nicky took a breath, ignoring the look Joe graced him with and removing his blood pressure monitor from his finger, clenching the clamp in his hand until he heard the creak of it’s plastic casing caving in on itself. Doctor Kozak came bustling into the room, her tablet in hand as she presumably checked on what had disturbed her data. Nicky grinned at her, projecting a much more combative personality than he’d shown her earlier. With all the coordination he could muster with his bound hand he flicked the monitor up at her face, laughing as it hit her square in the face and then, for good measure, he flipped her off. It was certainly not something he’d normally do, but Andy probably would. Maybe Joe if pushed.

Kozak didn’t react, unimpressed as she fished out another monitor from a drawer somewhere and then going out to the hall to call a guard over. Thankfully Joe hadn’t commented, watching Nicky annoy the doctor with calm detachment. He was much less calm when the two faceless goons followed the doctor back in, one of them hovering over Nicky with a gun to his head while the other observed as she reattached the new monitor to his finger. Ah, not good enough. Nicky struggled with only his wrist, twisting it this way and that and using his superior strength to keep forcing Kozak’s hand away. 

She tutted, standing back and gesturing to the free guard. “Break his wrist.”

Joe made an angry sound of alarm, but Nicky turned up his nose in derision only to scream when the guard acquiesced. The snapping sound rang out through the small room and Nicky let himself go limp, nausea and white spots a normal reaction to a broken bone so he didn’t worry. Kozak made a satisfied sound and attached the monitor, letting herself smile a little when he didn’t remove it. 

“We’re good here,” she nodded to the guards. Nicky kept himself ready to spring while he feigned weakness, holding his breath and praying his wrist wouldn’t heal until they’d been left alone.

It didn’t. 

As soon as the door snicked closed Nicky wrenched sharply back on his arm, the warped binding of his shoulder strap warping even more at the force behind his pull and his wrist breaking even more as it was forced through the too-small wrist binding. 

Two excruciating seconds later Nicky’s right arm was free and he was frantically pulling at the remaining bindings, knowing they were being monitored and would be descended upon soon.

“Nicolo…”

He didn’t stop at Joe’s voice, just working even faster as he sprung up out of the bed, grabbing a nearby syringe that seemed more fit for a horse than a person and pressing it into Joe’s hand before working on his bindings, needing him armed and at the ready for both of their collective peace of mind.

Not a moment too soon because in the next second a blast rang in his ear and he was pitching forward into darkness, only to awaken on the floor next to a crushed and bloody bullet, his hair feeling sticky and disgusting.

“ _Nicky_ ,” Joe called anxiously, slipping arms under Nicky’s to lever him to his feet. Joe was also covered in blood, but the splatter told Nicky it wasn’t his own.

“I’m okay.”

Joe huffed, setting Nicky down on the bed and busying himself with collecting weapons of off the guards he’d apparently dispatched while Nicky had been dead.

“Stupid plan,” Joe muttered and Nicky rolled his eyes.

“You always think my plans are stupid.”

“Not true.” Joe passed him a gun. “Just the ones that wind up with you dead.”

Nicky checked the magazine on the standard issue weapon and shrugged. “Yet somehow those plans always seem the most effective.”

Obviously sick of this line of conversation Joe jerked his head up at the door, letting Nicky see how he’d upended a heavy set of shelves in it’s path. Nicky winced, wondering how long he’d been dead for him to have done so.

“Only one way in, the other door just leads to a storage room. There’s a private army on the other side of that door and they’ll probably have more knock-out gas. Not a whole lot of options.”

Nicky nodded, eyes darting around the cluttered room and cringing at the bloody trays and test tubes. Books and binders cluttered the shelves along with tools and different medical solutions. 

He frowned. “Anything in storage?”

Joe shrugged. “Some machines and linens. I also just want to take this moment to thank God they hadn’t gotten around to putting catheters in us quite yet, as it’s very apparent they wanted to keep us here for the foreseeable future.”

Nicky toasted small miracles, but his attention quickly moved on when he heard rumbling footsteps approach. 

“Only one exit, huh?”

“Well…” Joe pursed his lips, mischief warring with the tension in his eyes. “There’s quite a lot of chemicals here. And a defibrillator. And the storage room seemed a lot less sturdy than this one...”

“Oh, _Yusuf_ ,” Nicky sighed, long-suffering. “And you call my plans stupid.”


	2. Chapter 2

Joe set the pipe bomb in off in the storage room, a lovingly concocted solution combining a modern understanding of demolitions with an alchemy twist (oh, alchemy had been a wonderful thing to behold. No one these days truly understood what a mad scientist was, certainly not Merrick). They’d rolled in all the blood and tissue samples into the room before detonating, not really believing they’d gotten all of it but hey, anything to make Merrick’s life harder. The explosion had opened up the floor below, hitting a pipe and slicking up the floor below. Going through that misty heat hadn’t been pleasant, but they felt confident Merrick’s men wouldn’t be following them through the mortal peril that was their escape route. It gave them precious time, and put them on a field of battle where they were no longer cornered. 

Hours of transport and non-consensual medical experimentations along with running through a tacky billionaire’s glass monstrosity soaking wet wouldn’t usually make Joe very chipper, but their successful subterfuge had put a twinkle of merriment in Nicky’s eyes, and with every floor they cleared without needing to kill someone the look grew. Joe recognized that particular kind of teasing hope; it’s when fate was working in their favour, or so Nicky tells it. When the destiny he so loved to simultaneously condemn and wax poetic about works in their favour in, how Booker would put it, a _nice fucking break._

Nicky’s bullet dug into the meaty thigh of the guard in front of them and Joe restrained himself from grinning as the man went down without fuss, only wearing a _suit_ of all things and easily throwing his hands up as the two immortals went by him. It was obvious that the one in charge of security had mobilized a veritable army to deal with their breakout and left the rest of the facility bare-boned, a huge mistake considering how slow they were in moving the security. Him and Nicky had only been ahead by one floor and they were gaining ground so rapidly it was startling, and served in stark contrast to how they’d been faring against Merrick’s men earlier. 

Nicky was flush with success, and when they finally spilled out onto the streets of London he practically _roared_ , breathing in free air like a man starving.

“Oh, I will write such poetry of this day, Nicolo,” Joe said passionately as he unloaded his weapon and threw it into the nearest trashcan, the size of the weapon unmanageable for the streets of London.

“And I will love every word,” Nicky vowed, before tugging at his bloody and soaking shirt with disgust. “I hope you will omit some details, though.”

Joe grabbed his hand and tugged him into a brisk run, needing to get out of the city center and all of it’s cameras. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. You always look wonderful to me.”

Nicky narrowed his eyes. “Canada. Nineteen seventy-two.”

“Touché.”

Gunfire sounded behind them and the twinkling of ricochet could be heard falling on the curb just a few feet off from the pair. 

Ah. It seemed their luck had run out.

“This way!” Nicky cried, and together they veered left, watching the buildings transition from the modern glass to brick and iron, until they finally gave way to a narrow alley meant solely for pedestrians, ensuring their pursuers followed them on foot.

Joe snagged Nicky’s wrist and he immediately followed his lead, sprinting through parking lots and over cement barricades until the sound of water reached their ears. They skipped down large, scraggly stones, obviously there to dissuade the public from approaching the river, and took shelter in the shadows of a nearby bridge, pressing each other as close as they could to the cement supports and gasping through their breaths. Their jobs (if you could even call it that) as members of the old guard kept them as physically fit as you could feasibly get unless you were an olympic athlete, but even they could get breathless after running through…eh, maybe a mile. 

“Oi!” 

Joe startled, pushing Nicky further against the cement and ignoring his annoyed huff. A man approached from the shadows, wild-haired and cloaked in layers of dark clothes, face twisted in a scowl. He was homeless, something more evident than what his clothing attested to as he’d crawled out of a gap in the cement supports. He was also very unimpressed with the two of them.

“Sorry,” Nicky gasped, his accent coming out thicker than usual. 

“You’re sorry? It’s not like this ain’t public property.”

Joe scowled, keeping an ear out for the screeching tires on pavement that would signal the arrival of those horrible SUVs that were in vogue for faceless evil hoards. He missed horses.

“Then what’s the issue.”

The man scoffed, eyeing the two of them up and down with a growing awareness that made Joe nervous. Whatever conclusions the man could come up with about them he knew they would be entirely wrong.

Gravel crackled by their ear as large cars passed overhead and Joe cursed, hearing the engines thrum in only the way egoist private soldiers could accomplish. 

Nicky grabbed his bicep, letting his expression convey all of Joe’s own thoughts. This wasn’t ideal ground, difficult to get in and out of. Of course, it would also be difficult for Merrick’s army but they had the numbers to barricade them in on either side. They’d only stopped for a minute, damn it! It was the only place that seemed like there wouldn’t be any cameras.

Footsteps and cocked weapons could be heard now, and the homeless man was catching on to the coming danger. He peeked around the corner of their hiding place only to quickly retreat, shuffling from foot to foot as he eyed Joe and Nicky with growing trepidation. He had every right to, as it was increasingly looking like they were both about to be brutally killed in the place where he essentially lived.

“They here for you two,” the man asked, jerking his head towards the noise.

Nicky nodded. “We’re sorry.”

The man growled, his shoulders hiking up as his expression darkened. Joe tensed in front of Nicky, but instead of yelling or attacking the man pointed to the small gap he’d crawled out of earlier. “Get in as far as you can and cover yourself with the darkest blanket.”

Nicky eyes softened, nodding his thanks and then bodily forcing Joe ahead of him. His shoulders barely fit through the entrance but it widened the deeper he went. The end of the small cave came quickly enough and Joe stretched out in the narrow space, welcoming Nicky next to him like it was any other night, and with the dark blanket over them it even felt like it.

“OI!” the homeless man yelled, his voice carrying into the cave with ease even though they couldn’t see him. “What do you think this is, the Blitz? Get that shit out of here!”

“We’re looking for dangerous fugitives.” Joe recognized the voice as the man who’d been giving orders when Merrick wasn’t around, but for the life of him couldn’t remember his name. “Have two men come this way? Middle-aged, same height. Might have blood on them.”

“You think I would let someone like that just go about their business? This neighborhood is a safe one, I’ll have you know. Well it _was_ before you men showed up.”

Mumbles followed the homeless man’s indignation, along with radio feedback. The leader (Ken? Sean?) ordered a canvass of the area and Nicky tensed in Joe’s arms, but was too well-trained to move.

“You lot think you can just barge in here-”

A thud sounded and Joe didn’t have to see Nicky to know his jaw clenched. They didn’t hear the homeless man speak again.

For over forty minutes Joe and Nicky stayed there, listening to the military lingo being thrown around and pointedly not hearing the homeless man who’d so selflessly given them a place to hide.

“Do you think…” a random goon said. “Do you think they just- walked into the river?”

Apparently a private army could titter.

“Fuck,” the leader cursed, already barking orders for helicopters and drones and heat-seeking whatevers to canvass the river. In another five minutes Joe heard the engine of those horrible vehicles hum to life and speed off.

He clenched a hand on Nicky’s hip, wordlessly asking his opinion on moving when an angry grunt filled their small cave. At first Joe clutched tighter to Nicky, thinking they were going to have to fight whatever guard had been leftover from Merrick’s team but Nicky made a shushing sound, calmly removing the blanket and shuffling for the exit.

“I’d say sorry for the mess,” the homeless man grinned as they emerged, blood on the corner of his mouth, “but I hadn’t been expecting company, see.”

Nicky laughed, bright and high. “What’s your name?”

“George.”

“Well George,” Nicky said, sincerity pulling at his lips, “that was a very kind thing you did.”

George scowled, fiddling with his dirty hands. “It’s not that. I just don’t like coppers. Didn’t want them snooping around.”

“Either way,” Joe said, patting off the dust that stuck to his wet clothes. “We’re very grateful.”

George grinned slyly, extending a hand. “How grateful.”

Nicky slapped his shoulder. “Joe, pay the man,” he said, before slinking around the perimeter. Joe spluttered and patted at his clothes, already knowing his belongings, including his wallet, were sitting on some desk somewhere in Merrick’s lab. Joe made his apologies, wringing his hands as much as he could and ignoring Nicky’s amused cough. Sometimes his love could be quite the prick.

“We’ll come back, George,” Nicky promised. “And we’ll bring cash next time.”

***

“Did they just…escape?”

“Seems like it,” Andy grunted, vaguely noting the relief on Booker’s face and not knowing what to do with it. “Doesn’t matter, they’ll still need an extraction to make it out of London.”

“Right,” Copley said seriously,trying to muster up some bravado despite how much her two boys had impressed him. “We’ll need to figure that out then.”

“Who’s ‘we’,” Andy asked, eyes barely glancing down at the traitor at her feet.

“I’d also like an answer to that question.”

Andy whirled, her gun raised only to lock eyes with Nile as she slowly crept into the study, the gun in her hand trained on Andy, but she didn’t take offense.

“I thought you were going back to your family,” Andy said, feeling a pang she hadn’t known she would that Nile had come back.

Nile paused, giving her head a minute shake. “Booker gave you an empty gun, Andy. I had to know.”

Andy sighed, relaxing her grip on her weapon and noticing Nile do the same. “God fucking damn it, Booker.”


End file.
